Integrate Compass with your Jira Software project

Some time ago we already talked about Compass, Atlassian’s new product created specifically for developers.

Now they have just released a new feature that allows us to fully integrate Compass with our Jira Software projects: Components.

Components are an old friends of Jira Software projects, the new is that now, we can create two different types of components within the same Jira project:

• Jira components: they serve to group the issues of a project into smaller parts that have some element in common.
• Compass components: a Compass component is an independent piece of software that requires an owner, that is, a service, a library, an application, a data model or anything you can think of.

Why is this functionality useful?

Like the Jira components, the new Compass components have a number of very useful functionalities for monitoring and controlling the development project. In summary:

• Tagging Jira Software issues with the corresponding Compass component helps us track what the team is working on and allows us to use Compass metrics and dashboards to understand the impact of that work. This information will be very useful when making decisions about where to invest the development team’s time.
• Compass components are an optional feature that extends the concept that currently exists with Jira components.
• Jira project administrators can disable and enable them on a project-by-project basis.
• When enabled, Compass components will automatically be displayed in the drop-down menu of the Components field in the view of any issue. Once you start using them in tasks, they will appear on the project’s Component page, along with relevant information that may be useful to developers.
• Any Jira Software user can use Compass components, as long as the product is registered in our instance.

Let’s see little by little all the details of configuration and use of this new functionality.

Are you clear on what a Compass Component is?

Compass has been created for development teams, especially for teams that develop microservices or apps. It is also for companies that want to track, trace and monitor their services, libraries or applications. Therefore, Compass components help to catalog, trace dependencies and keep track of the relevant information of each of them.

If you are using the Compass catalog to find everything you need and really have the technical architecture of all the equipment organized, then Compass components will allow you to keep track of any of the elements of the architecture. A fundamental piece if you want your development team to work really well, integrated and coordinated.

How can I create Compass components in my Jira Software project?

It is extremely simple, but you have to take into account the following points:

• You have to be a project administrator to be able to create them.
• The Jira Software project must be of the “Company managed” type.
• Compass must be active in your instance.
• You have to decide whether you want to use Compass components or Jira Components, but you can switch from one to the other at any time. What is not possible is to use both at the same time.
• Any user with JSW access will be able to use the Component field, but only users with Compass access will be able to see the information on the Components page.

What do they look like in my Jira Software project?

Pretty much the same as the regular Jira Software components, but with some difference in appearance. If components already exist in your Jira project, you will see a pop up highlighting the new option to create Compass components:

If you access it, you will see that it is possible to switch between one option or another. Remember that only project administrators will be able to make this change at any time.

If you were already using the components, the field will already be configured in your tasks. If not, make sure that the components field is visible so that users can select the component they are most interested in.

When selecting the value of the field, it will look like this:

The most frequently used components will always be at the top of the list, but you can always search through the complete list to find the one you are most interested in.

You will see that a Compas component will always appear with its icon so that it is easily recognizable. If the task already had a previous Jira component, it will be displayed but in a dimmed form. In no case is it removed or disappears.

Once you have mapped several tasks to their corresponding Compass component, the Components menu will begin to offer results. For now, you will only see data in this menu when you have associated at least one task with its Compass component.

It seems that in future versions there will be other ways to do this step, but for now it is the only one.

Improvement topics

Atlassian is aware that this new functionality still has room for improvement, so there are a number of known bugs that you should be aware of if you start working with Compass components:

1. These components do not yet work in Automation. It looks like this functionality will be available soon, expected in April.
2. You may have to refresh the screen after disabling Compass components if the previous Jira components do not appear. This is only a loading problem and not a problem with data storage. There is no risk of data loss if you try the Compass components and decide not to use them.
3. If you have more than 30k Jira projects, you may not see Compass components available. We are still working on how to provide this functionality on such a large scale.

In addition to fixing these defects, other features and enhancements are already in the works:

1. Instance-wide opt-in/opt-out option. Product administrators can have full control if needed.
2. More ways to link Compass components to Jira projects for project administrators. We’ll give you better tools to stay organized.
3. The ability to import existing Jira components directly into Compass. We know this is a stumbling block for some of you and we’d like to work on it soon.